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Author | Topic: Life! What a concept! | |||||||||||||||||||||||
molbiogirl Member (Idle past 2672 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: |
I'm having so much fun reading this free book from Edge.org, I want to share the link with everyone.
Page not found | Edge.org From the site:
This year's Annual Edge Event took place at Eastover Farm in Bethlehem, CT on Monday, August 27th. Invited to address the topic "Life: What a Concept!" were Freeman Dyson, J. Craig Venter, George Church, Robert Shapiro, Dimitar Sasselov, and Seth Lloyd, who focused on their new, and in more than a few cases, startling research, and/or ideas in the biological sciences. A small group of journalists interested in the kind of issues that are explored on Edge were present: Corey Powell, Discover, Jordan Mejias, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Heidi Ledford, Nature, Greg Huang, New Scientist, Deborah Treisman, New Yorker, Edward Rothstein, New York Times, Andrian Kreye, Sddeutsche Zeitung, Antonio Regalado, Wall Street Journal. Guests included Heather Kowalski, The J. Craig Venter Institute, Ting Wu, The Wu Lab, Harvard Medical School, and the artist Stephanie Rudloe. Attending for Edge: Katinka Matson, Russell Weinberger, Max Brockman, and Karla Taylor. We are witnessing a point in which the empirical has intersected with the epistemological: everything becomes new, everything is up for grabs. Big questions are being asked, questions that affect the lives of everyone on the planet. And don't even try to talk about religion: the gods are gone. Following the theme of new technologies=new perceptions, I asked the speakers to take a third culture slant in the proceedings and explore not only the science but the potential for changes in the intellectual landscape as well. We are pleased to present the transcripts of the talks and conversation along with streaming video clips (links below). RAZD, I think you will love this book. And it's an easy read.
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molbiogirl Member (Idle past 2672 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: |
This doesn't sound like a wild goose chase to me.
We want to be able to mirror image PCR, polymerase chain reaction, where you can amplify up DNA with a mirror-image polymerase. A post-doc has gone through a prototype polymerase which is for a medium size ” 353 amino acids long ” and he's made all but four of the peptide bonds now. So we're very close to getting that first polymerase.
But the goal then so we can make mirror image DNA is to make mirror image proteins, and there we have to make all of the ribosome from scratch, and so we wouldn't make all the ribosome just for fun, but this is something that we think is useful. And that's about 25 times more bonds to be made than just making the DNA polymerase. But, as Craig will greatly attest, scaling up by a factor of 25 is not that big a deal. In the genome project we went basically a hundred thousand fold scale-up from where we were at the time we started. And now we're talking about doing many many genomes. I think we will be able to make a mirror image DNA polymerase and ribosome, in which case you can start programming it straight from the computer. Once you have it all you can start making mirror-image proteins.
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molbiogirl Member (Idle past 2672 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: |
I'm no Freeman Dyson fan.
And then your OP include this quote: "We are witnessing a point in which the empirical has intersected with the epistemological". Since epistemology is way off track (IMO), I don't find that encouraging. Since when is a hyperbolic blurb evidence that that book is a wild goose chase?
I'm reminded of Turing's 1950 prediction that successful AI was just around the corner. For every scientist you name who overestimates technological progress, I can name a scientist who underestimated the progress of the technology. So far, genomic technologies are following Moore's Law.
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molbiogirl Member (Idle past 2672 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: |
In this discussion there appears to be an assumption that life is digital. I likewise believe that to be a faulty assumption. Seth Lloyd. And if you define life as "the genome", which Seth does, then life most certainly is digital.
It's been known since the structure of DNA was elucidated that DNA is very digital. There are four possible base pairs per site, two bits per site, three and a half billion sites, seven billion bits of information in the human DNA. You don't seem to have read the .pdf. You seem to be jumping to conclusions.
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molbiogirl Member (Idle past 2672 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: |
I don't define life as the genome. I don't define thought/intelligence as logic. I suspect that we are seeing two different versions of the same mistake. You missed the point. Here's the full quote:
Quantum mechanics means that there are only a discrete number of species of chemicals. You can only put together two hydrogens and an oxygen to make a molecule in one way that I know of. This means that we can catalog chemicals in a discrete list ” chemical number one, chemical number two, chemical number three ” you can order it any way you want according to your favorite chemicals. But it's discrete. This digital nature of the universe actually infects everything, in particular life. It's been known since the structure of DNA was elucidated that DNA is very digital. There are four possible base pairs per site, two bits per site, three and a half billion sites, seven billion bits of information in the human DNA. There's a very recognizable digital code of the kind that electrical engineers rediscovered in the 1950s that maps the codes for sequences of DNA onto expressions of proteins. There's a digital nature to the universe, and quantum mechanics makes this happen. In fact, having read Seth's entire contribution to this conversation, at no point does he define life. He talks about the quantum nature of the universe and how it leads to complexity.
As long as they are the right conclusions, then no harm done. But you didn't come to the right conclusion.
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molbiogirl Member (Idle past 2672 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: |
CS, let's try to stick to the book. There's nothing about a god in the book.
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molbiogirl Member (Idle past 2672 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: |
That omission is telling us something. From the first sentence in Seth's talk.
I'd like to step back from talking about life itself. You really should read something before you spout off.
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molbiogirl Member (Idle past 2672 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: |
HM, let's try to stay on topic. If you'd like to comment on the contents of the .pdf, that's fine.
But I don't want this thread to turn into "What's life?". That isn't what any of those guys are talking about.
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molbiogirl Member (Idle past 2672 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: |
Well, excuse me, then. In the subject .pdf of your OP, Seth Lloyd says this: If you'd like to debate the digital nature of DNA, fine. If you'd like to debate the nature of life, please take it to the appropriate thread: Message 1. Had you bothered to read the .pdf, you would have noticed the first sentence of Seth Lloyd's talk:
I'd like to step back from talking about life itself.
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molbiogirl Member (Idle past 2672 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: |
Teen, please. If you'd like to debate the nature of "life v. nonlife", please take it to the appropriate thread:
Message 1.
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molbiogirl Member (Idle past 2672 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: |
I just pointed out to Hoot Mon that DNA isn't the only way "digital" information could be passed on from one generation to the next. You aren't discussing the digital nature of DNA. You are discussing prions and stars. And, for the record, prions are not passed from one generation to the next. Nor do they contain DNA. If you have anything to add re: digital information of DNA (and only DNA), feel free to comment. And will y'all please read the .pdf before going off half-cocked?
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molbiogirl Member (Idle past 2672 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: |
From your previous post:
I just pointed out to Hoot Mon that DNA isn't the only way "digital" information could be passed on from one generation to the next. PRIONS ARE NOT PASSED FROM ONE GENERATION TO THE NEXT.
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molbiogirl Member (Idle past 2672 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: |
HM, the subject of this thread is the .pdf I mentioned in the OP.
You need to stick to the topic. If you'd like to start a "DNA and Its Relationship to Prions and the Stars" thread, you are welcome to do so. To discuss that relationship here is OT.
Please read Message 40 before responding to this post. Thanks --AdminPD Edited by AdminPD, : Warning
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molbiogirl Member (Idle past 2672 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: |
Taz, I just call em as I see em.
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molbiogirl Member (Idle past 2672 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: |
Sidelined, wtf? Kevlar? Shrapnel?
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